Curbing domestic violence takes staff, and there aren't enough, says N.L. director

As Newfoundland and Labrador's justice minister exchanges letters with his federal counterpart about legal reforms that would curb intimate partner violence, the head of a women's centre in the province says what's needed is much simpler: money.

Nicole O'Keefe, executive director of the NorPen Status of Women Council on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula, says there are too few police officers and not enough women's shelter staff to address climbing rates of intimate partner violence.

Changes to the Criminal Code, O'Keefe said in an interview Monday, won't necessarily help women who don't report being abused because they fear the justice system will deepen their trauma.

"We definitely need more support for victims, survivors and their families," O'Keefe said. "Police and women's centres and violence prevention organizations, everybody is struggling to do our best to support those who need us with very limited bodies in place."

O'Keefe's comments come on the heels of an exchange between federal Justice Minister Arif Virani and John Hogan, his provincial counterpart in Newfoundland and Labrador. Hogan wrote Virani in March to ask that the federal minister consider making changes to the Criminal Code that would make it harder for those accused of intimate partner violence or domestic violence to be released on bail.

Hogan recommended that anyone accused of intimate partner or domestic violence be subjected to what's known as a reverse onus — a legal provision that shifts the onus to the accused, rather than the court, to prove they pose no further threat if they are released on bail. Reverse onus provisions currently extend only to people previously found guilty of abusing a partner.

Hogan sent the letter about a week after a St. John's woman was found dead and Ibrahim Alahmad was charged with her murder. Alahmad had been out on bail.

Virani responded to Hogan with a four-page letter dated last week detailing recent changes the Canadian government has made to the Criminal Code to prevent intimate partner violence. Those changes include a requirement that judges consider whether someone accused of intimate partner violence should wear an electronic monitoring device as a bail condition.

"I acknowledge that there is more that can be done to protect victims of IPV at the bail stage of criminal proceedings," Virani wrote to Hogan. "With this in mind, I have shared your recommended Criminal Code amendments with departmental officials to ensure that they are given due consideration."

O'Keefe said electronic monitoring for those accused of intimate partner violence might work, but only if there are enough staff to keep tabs on the device and respond to it. The NorPen women's council covers the island's largest peninsula, which stretches about 400 kilometres from Deer Lake in the south to St. Anthony, on the region's northernmost tip.

The peninsula is home to about 14,500 people in 69 communities, many of them small fishing villages dotting the long, sparse highway that runs along the eastern coast. The region's few police officers often drive great distances to get to whoever might need help, O'Keefe said. And there is just one gender-based violence support worker at her organization, hired recently thanks to a boost in federal funding.

It's nowhere near enough, she said.

Her comments are reflected in a national study released earlier this year by Women's Shelters Canada that showed chronic underfunding is leading to burnout and staff shortages at shelters. The report surveyed more than 300 shelter and transition house employees across the country and found that two-thirds made less than $50,000 a year.

"Women's centres are struggling to have enough staff," she said. "We definitely need more resources."